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The Voice of Duty. 



AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED A^T THE ANTI-SLAVERY PIC NIC 



WESTMINSTER, MASS. JULY 4, 1843. 



BY ADIN BALLOU. 



-^ 



" Undo the heavy burdens — let the oppressed go free.^' 



1843. 
COMMUNITY PRESS, HOFEDALE, MILFORD, MASS. 



. £r4f 



* or 



ADDRESS. 



We are here to honor liberty and to denounce slavery. To assert the rights 
of man, and to testify against oppression. To invigorate the love of freedom, and 
to deepen the detestation of tyranny. To proclaim the dictates of eternal justice, 
and to rebuke the wrongs done by man to man. We are here to do all this with 
out respect of persons, without favor, and without fear. Man is man wherever he 
may exist. Liberty is liberty, and slavery is slavery wherever found. Justice is 
justice, and wrong is wrong, between men of all countries, complexions and con- 
ditions — alike. " As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto 
them," is the golden rule for all human beings. By this rule we must measure the 
justice of man to man, and determine the right or the wrong of his actions. 

It is usual for our fourth of July orators to glorify liberty as the especial birth- 
right of American white men — while they overlook the condition of American 
colored men. To denounce British slavery, oppression and tyranny — while they 
are silent concerning American slavery, oppression and tyranny. To flatter their 
own countrymen with bombastic encomiums on their devotion to liberty, and tlie 
excellence of their republican institutions, instead of faitlifully reproving them for 
tlieir systematic violations of all their professed principles. It is time to be ashamed 
of this self-glorification, and to consider that an ounce of genuine reform is better 
than tons of panegyric. We honor liberty only wjien we make her impartial — the 
same/or and to all men. We honor the memory of our patriot fathers only when 
we are faithful to carry out their highest professions. We arc the frit^nds of all 
really good institutions only when we disfcllowship and endeavor to abolish those 
bad institutions which have grown up on the same soil. Even the good tree must 
be pruned that it may bring forth still fairi^r fruit. It is a pitiful weakness to crave 
perpetual flattery, and to be oflbnded at wholesome reproof. We Americans have 
exhibited full enough of this weakness. We have lived on flattery long enough. 
We have been children long enough. We have been wlieedled and befooled long 
enough by the sops and sugar plumbs of demagogues. It is time to be men- — time 
to know our own faults — to understand our own diseases — to repent of our sins, and 
put away our reproach. To do this is to be men — to be wise, to be honorable, to 
he happy. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." 
Politicians thrive by trimming to the whims and caprices of the people — by man- 
aging them. True philanthropists and patriots by reforming the public sentiment ; 
by bringing the people to identify their honor and prosperity with righteousness ; 
by learning them to govern themselves. The only government that can meet the 
wants of man is one founded in the moral sense of the people — sustained by an 
enlightened public conscience. And no political institutions, however specious in 



profession, or sacred in the veneration of the multitude, can endure, if erected on 
the sandy foundation of injustice and hypocrisy. 

Yet it shocks many people to hear the least intimation that the fundamental laws 
of their country are false and unjust in any important respects — that they need and 
must receive essential amendments, in order to conform them to the law of God. — 
They take a man for a public enemy, or at least for a hair-braind fanatic, who tells 
them that the Constitution of the United States, so far as it is a league to uphold 
negro slavery, is a league to commit sin against God, man, and the self-evident 
truths of the national creed. They look on such a man as the defamer of his fore- 
fathers, the slanderer of republicanism, and virtually a traitor to the government. 
And yet what candid man can deny that this is the sober truth ? I hold it to be so. 
In saying this do I villify the memory of our patriot forefathers.' Do I give them 
no honor ? Do I allow them no credit .' I honor them with all my heart for their 
devotion to right principles, for all the truly noble traits in their character, for their 
fidelity to their own highest light. But because I honor their love of liberty, must 
I honor their compromises with slavery ? Must I worship their weaknesses? Must 
I hallow their errors .' Must I swear to trample on the rights of black men, and 
consecrate my heart's blood to maintain eternal oppression, because in an evil hour 
they were either deceived or betrayed into a guaranty of wrong? Am I to follow 
them farther than they followed truth and righteousness ? Or must I renounce all 
power to judge and determine what is right — implicitly consenting and obliging 
myself to all that they judged expedient. O great and venerated men, speak from 
the land of shades, and forbid us to follow you farther than you followed liberty and 
justice ! Ye were noble and great, but only so as ye were good. Ye are now where 
all delusions have passed away, and I know that equity and rectitude are paramount 
with you to all fame and all policy. So let them be with us. 

And the Constitution of the United States, am I obliged to place it above Christ- 
ianity — above the laws of Jehovah ? May I not approve what is right in it, with- 
out sanctifying its wrong ? Because I admire a handsome face, must I also admire 
the cancer on it which I see beginning to eat away all its beauty! I stand on a 
higher platform than any mere human compact. I try all human constitutions and 
laws by the criterion of the divine law — by those great fundamental principles of 
moral rectitude which are coeval with God himself, and which can never be violat- 
ed without subverting the welfare of creation. It is not in the power of man, no 
not of all the wise men on earth, assembled in one grand deliberative convention, 
to make hatred right, injustice right, cruelty right, or any single action right Avhich 
is inherently wrong. Men may expound and apply the laws of divine rectitude to 
the social relations of a people, but they cannot make or unmake right. Here we 
plant our feet, and here we assume to reject and denounce all the works of in- 
iquity whenever, or in whomsoever exhibited. Washington, Adams, Hancock and 
their patriot compeers stand before this judgment seat on the same level with Bene- 
dict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and the meanest of mankind. The right and the noble, 
tlie good and the true shall here be honored. The wrong and the base, the vile and 
the false be condemned. Persons are here put second to principles ; names and 
forms to things. At the same bar we try the Constitution of the United States and 
the British Charter. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, in spite of all human 
opinions, customs, constitutions and governments. And the man that does not take 
this sublime position is unfit to expound human duty, or guide mankind into happi- 
ness. " For if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch together.'" If 



I am taken to be the enemy of man, of my country, or social order for occupying 
such ground as this, I can afford to suffer all the reproach and injury which igno- 
rance and selfishness may be permitted to inflict upon me. But I persuade myself 
that I am surrounded by men and women on this occasion who sympathise with me, 
and can respond cordially to the utterance of such truths. And believing this I 
demand the verdict of this congregation on the case of American Slavery. Is 
this nation guilty, or not guilty ? 1 mean the whole American people, who are con- 
federated under the national constitution, and who are in league to govern and be 
governed according to the prescriptions of that instrument. In sorrow I charo-e 
this great nation. North and South, East and West, with the guilt of slaveholding. 
With having solemnly covenanted together to uphold slavery and all its necessary 
concomitant evils, by legislative, judicial and military power. Is this a true and 
just charge ? Who can deny it ? And what is the guilt involved in this charge ? 
Is it a light and venial guilt? Is it a small sin for a professedly free, moral and re- 
ligious people to commit ? What would it he for the greatest tyrant on earth who 
acknowledged no higher principle than that ' might makes right;' what would it be- 
for him to send his minions to these free hills and ravish away one family from your 
midst — doom one father, mother, son and daughter to the condition of American 
slaves! — declare them to be henceforth things, 'chattels personal,' mere human 
cattle — to abolish the sacred tie of marriage between them, the relation of parent 
and child, the obligation of brother and sister; so that the fond husband must see 
his wife forced into the arms of a brutal overseer whenever lust prompted, or car- 
ried off in a coffle to a distant region to toil under a more scorching sun, and be 
compelled to bear offspring by other men — and those offspring in turn subjected to 
a similar or worse fate. So that the father and brother must not only drink the bit- 
ter cup to its dregs, but have no right to protest like men against the most flagitious 
wrong which could be done to a wife, a daughter, a mother and sister — nor they be 
suffered to pour their tender sympathies into the lacerated bosoms of their dearest 
kin ! O that horrible condition — man a thing ! the property of man ! Imbruted as 
if a beast ; watched and punished as if a human being ; mocked with the form of 
marriage ; tantalized with the obligations of husband, parent, child, yet allowed to 
act the part of neither, except at the will of an owner ! Commanded to keep the 
whole law, yet compelled to break every precept in the decalogue — to worship God 
and do only his will, yet make a master's whims the highest law ! Robbed of all that 
exalts and ennobles human nature! Purchased with the blood of Christ, and urged 
to be a Christian, yet owned, sold, trafficked in, worked, scourged, killed, by inches, 
even by professed members of the church of Christ! Prostituted, polluted, degrad- 
ed, outrage^ ! My soul is sick, my heart is pained at the bare thought of slavery 
in its most moderate aspect. How could I go down and grind in that prison house!' 
How could I see my bosom companion, my dear son, or daughter reduced to that 
condition! What bribe would induce me to consent to it.' WJiat but the direst 
necessity would bring me to such a fate ? But if a whole nation should league to- 
gether to reduce me and my family to this same slavery ; if they should agree to sit 
and make laws with my oppressor, whereby to keep me down ; if they should pledge 
all their property and military force to my master, to compel me back again when I 
ran away, and put on my shackles again when I should dare to revolt from him, O 
what then could I do! what hope but death, or the awful vindication of God him- 
self, would remain to me ? There you all stand consenting with the oppressor. He 
says I am his property ; you say amen. He says he has as good a right to control 



6 

aiul (lisposn of mo, ns von Imvo of your liorse or your do? ; nml you consent that it 
is even so. Ho says lie will sconrg'C or kill me, if I dare resist his ■will ; you swear 
that you will help him execute his throats. He has got your word, your promise, 
your bond, your very oath, that you will assist him by force and arms to keep me 
and all my posterity in slavery as long as he chooses. You are in intimate fellow- 
ship with him. You make merry with him on the lash-extorted earnings of his 
slaves. You call him a respectable gentleman and a christian. You give your 
daughters in marriage to his sons, and ask his dauf^hters to wife for your sons. You 
sit and make laws with him. You put him into the chief places of power. You 
make merchandise of what he calls property, and grow rich by the prodigality which 
his indolence engenders. You go to war and fight by his side. You sit down in 
the house of God with him and profess to observe the ordinances of religion, as if 
all these things were acceptable to the supreme God. And whenever a man dares to 
plead for these dumb sufferers, and to rebuke you for consenting to all this iniquity ; 
ycu bid him mind his own business, denounce him as a fanatic, a treason plotter, a 
disturber of the church and state. What does all this mean ? Is there not a cause? 
Again I ask, if all this were done by a tyrant, or a nation of tyrants, who made no 
pretensions to freedom, republicanism or morality, M'ould it not be a horrible sin 
against humanity and God ? 

But now all this, and a tliousand times more of wrong than T can describe is 
done in the name, by the authority, with the consent, and under the solemn sanction 
of the liege citizens of these United States. By a people professing to hold as self- 
evident truths, that all men (black and white) are created equal ; are endowed with 
certain inalienable rights — "among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." By a people who disdained to pay even a three penny tax to England, with- 
out a voice in her parliament, because it was an infraction of their natural rights. 
By a people who spent millions of money, and rivers of blood to maintain their own 
independence. By a people whose poets, orators, senators and statesmen are for- 
ever glorifying liberty, and extolling themselves as its greatest votaries. By a peo- 
ple whose land is full of Churches, Theological Seminaries, Bible Societies, Mis- 
sionary societies. Tract Societies, Education Societies, &c. &c. ' This is the people 
who can coolly impose a bondage on two and a half millions of their fellow beings 
"one hour of which" as Jefierson says, "is fraught M^ith more misery than ages of 
that which their fathers rose in rebellion to resist." This is the people who, as 
Pinckney says, can "sermonize it with liberty for their text and oppression for their 
commentary." Who can piously send the Bible to Hindoostan, and at the same time 
prohibit it to their own slaves. Who can sell a man to equip a missionary for the 
antipodes while they multiply heathen at the rate of GO,COO a year in their own coun- 
try, and forbid this same heathen to be tauglit how to read the New Testament un- 
der the severest penalties. Some of whose churches can own a part of their own 
members ; and occasionally sell one to purchase communion plate! Is there a God? 
and is he just? Does he love righteousness and hate robbery for burnt offering ? 
And will he not visit for these things? Will not his "soul be avenged on such 
a nation as this !" And when he rises up to judgment, who, shall stand in his pres- 
ence ? Give your verdict ; is this nation guilty or not guilty, even tJiis whole peo- 
ple, who are in league to uphold these complicated and tremendous wrongs ? Guilty, 
guilty ! must be your verdict. 

Then repent. Let every man, woman and child make haste to repent of this great 
sin — of all participation, consent or aid in this system of iniquity. By all the 



professions of republicanism wiiicli you are niuking before the world, by all the 
dictates of reason, by all the impulses of humanity, by all the awful sanctions of re- 
ligion, by every consideration of temporal and eternal good which can move a con- 
scientious mind, I conjure you to separate yourselves and wash your hands forever 
of this horrible abomination. Let no man of you lay down to sleep again till he 
can honestly say, " I am clear of the blood of these 2^00,000 slaves. I neither own 
any of them, nor help hold them in bondage, nor consent to the wrongs done them, 
nor fellowship their oppressors politically or religiously, nor refrain from pleading 
their cause by word and deed before the world. Their wrongs are my wrongs, 
their rights arc my rights, their case is my case ; I will do unto and for them, as I 
would have them do unto and for me, were I in their place and they in mine." This 
is all I ask, as the friend and advocate of our common humanity. Less than this 
you cannot render and be innocent. Do you render all this ? Will you render it? 
Consider well what you promise before you give your pledge ; and then fulfil it. 

But you will ask me if this is my method of abolishing slavery? It is. And 
what other so true and effectual can bo devised ? Do you doubt either the practi- 
cability or success of this method? If every individual on this aide Mason and 
Dixon's line would take this stand, the current of public sentiment would immedi- 
ately sweep slavery from the whole South. Public opinion sustains slavery ; public 
opinion only can abolish it. And public opinion is nothing but the confluence of 
individual opinion. If only one hundred persons in every town of the so called 
free States, all good, true and consistent, would take the stand I have conjured 
you individually to take, slavery would fall before their combined moral efforts with- 
in five years. Let these one hundred persons include the leading influences of 
every town, those who are considered the first men and women, the religious, lite- 
rary, professional, respectable characters, and the work would be done in two years 
time. Will they volunteer in so good a cause ? Will the professed ministers of 
Christ take this stand ? Will the lawyers, physicians, merchants and school teach- 
ers take this stand ? Will the best families, who wish to be considered at the head 
of society, take this stand ? Will our candidates for civil oflice take this stand ? 
Or is the sacrifice too great for these leading characters to make ? Shall we have 
those with us who ought to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth ? Or 
must we depend on the plain common people, or perhaps on the publicans and sin- 
ners to take this noble stand? Must it be as it has been so many times before, that 
"the last shall be first and the first last r" Be it so, if so it must be to the glory of 
God. If these things must be hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto 
babes — if "not many wise men afler the tlesh, not many mighty, not many noble 
are called ; if the foolish things of the world have been chosen to confound the wise, 
and weak things to confound the mighty, and base and despised things to bring to 
nought the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence," all we can 
say is "even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." But the work will be 
done, and blessed are they who willingly lend themselves as instruments through 
self-sacrifice, and reproach to accomplish the glorious result. 

But says one, " if I take your position, I can never hold oflice again under the 
present Federal Constitution." Why not ? Because I must swear or affirm to sup- 
port that Constitution, as it is" Will they not allow you to go to Congress, or to 
sit on the judical bench protesting against the pro-slavery parts of the Constitution, 
and reserving your rights of conscience, your allegiance to God ? ' No.' Then, 
for righteousucsb' sake, never take oflice again under that Constitution till it is' 



amoihTed. Will yon go iiilo office swearing to a lie and binding yourself to uphold 
all the crimes forbidden in the decalo^rue, for the sake of its honors and emolu- 
ments, or even for the sake of any imaginable good you could do your country? If 
you could not have office except by first committing robbery, or adultery, would you 
accept it on such conditions ? But if you commit slave holding either as principal, 
or accomplice, you couimit indirectly, or at least give your sanction to, daily thou- 
sands of robberies and adulteries. You ought to be horror-struck and ashamed to 
take office on such terms. You have no right to do evil that good may come. But 
siy you, " if for these reasons I cannot take office under the Federal Constitution 
so neither can I vote any one else into office under it, as my representative or agent." 
Why not? " Because I must be a qualified citizen before I can vote, and to be a 
qualified citizen I must be under an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. I must 
be a consenting, covenanting party to it. I must bind myself to abide by it as the 
rule of my political practice. If 1 am not under allegiance to the Constitution, I 
am a mere subject of the government, not a qualified participant in it — not a voter. 
Besides, how can I put another into a place which I could not myself occupy ? So 
then I cannot even vote under the Constitution without endorsing it as it is, pro- 
slavery and all." Well then, I say, if this be so, quit the ballot-box. If you can- 
not even cast your vote without consenting to the rightfulness of slavery, without 
setting your hand and seal to a bond which obliges you to uphold this concentra- 
tion of all crimes and abominations, for righteousness' sake, for the sake of all that 
is good and great, become a mere subject of the government. Cease to be a gov- 
erning citizen ; cease to appear at the ballot-box ; fall back upon your simple man- 
hood ; depend only on such means for reforming and governing as God and nature 
have given to every individual human being. Would not this be nobler than to 
sacrifice your principles and your conscience ? "But if I should do so the profli- 
gate and unprincipled would have full control, and they would laugh good men, 
thus shorn of political power, to scorn. It would suit them right well. This is just 
what they want. Then all manner of crime would ride rampant through the land, 
unchecked and unrestrained." And so you must call light darkness, and put bitter 
for sweet, and turn judgment into wormwood and gall, for the sake of the political 
checks and restraints you could put on crime by voting and holding office ! The 
end sanctifies the means, does it r It is right to do evil that good may come, is it ? 
It is expedient to swear away the self-evident truths of religion and the declaration 
of independence, in order to get political power enough to restrain vice ! Alas, for 
such short sighted wisdom — such self-thwarting expediency. If you mean to re- 
strain crime, are you not bound to restrain a system which engenders and involves 
all crime ? And do you propose to restrain that system by avouching its virtue and 
swearing to uphold it with all your might? I tell you, my friend, you are most de- 
plorably mistaken in your notions of restraining crime, and in your estimate of 
political power. He who openly, constantly, conscientiously and consistently tes- 
tifies against iniquity, by scrupulously disfellowshipping and abstaining from all 
participation in it, wields ten times, nay one hundred times, the real power against 
it, which he possibly could with any political force he might acquire by first consent- 
ing and swearing to support it. With armies and navies, police guards and prisons 
at his command, he would be weak, after once allowing himself to be shorn of his 
moral strength. Because he would then be but an armed hypocrite, forcing others 
by brute power to abstain from crimes far less dangerous to human welfare than 
those which he was obliged to commit in order to obtain office. We cannot cast 



9 

out Satan by Satanic power, nor put down sin with sin. You say that the profli- 
gate and vicious left in political power will laugh you to scorn. I tell you that 
those characters will then respect and dread you. They may affect to laugh, but 
their knees will soon begin to smite together in despair, as they see the hand writ- 
ing of moral rebuke on the wall of their palaces. What can such characters do 
when stemming the great Mississippi of concentrated public sentiment ? Can they 
bear to be loathed and abhorred by a whole virtuous people — to be shunned and 
detested as unfit to be received into decent society ? Not they. Besides, many 
that we might think profligate in their moral principles are susceptible of being 
convicted and converted by these very means which you imagine they will laugh 
at. Some of the most determined slave holders, who are now willing to use our 
northern doe-faces as tools, hold them in sovereign contempt. They despise, they 
loathe them as most contemptible renegades to the principles of their moral edu- 
cation. And if one must be despised and hated by such men, would he not choose 
to be so as an lionest consistent out-spoken abolitionist, ratJier than as a poor toad- 
eating traitor to anti-slavery moral principle? Well, say you, "let the religious 
influences move in this reform ; let the ministers and churches denounce and dis- 
fellowship slavery, and we will not be behind them." 

Do you hear tliis, ye ministers and professed disciples of him who came to preach 
deliverance to the captives ; and who placed himself in the condition of a slave and a 
malefactor to redeem the world ? Are you yet stumbling blocks in the way of the 
Lord, which is being cast up for his ransomed .' What hinders you from solemnly 
declaring for a right public sentiment on this subject ? You ought to lead ; do ye 
wait for the multitude ? Do you know the love of God as it is in Christ, and still 
not abiior slavery with your whole heart ? Is there one of you who has a spirit to 
justify, apologise for, or treat with tolerant indifference this monstrous system of in- 
iquity ? If so I cannot argue with you ; argument would be vain ; but I forewarn 
you with grief that the day is approaching when the people shall come from the 
east and the west, the north and the south, and sit down with the emancipated 
slaves in the kingdom of God, while you will have a portion with the hypocrites and 
unbelievers. If tliere are such ministers and such professors, their house will be 
lefl unto them desolate. They shall not see the face of the Lord's annointed, till they 
bless his coming in every great work of reform. And you of the ministry, 
and church who see and feel your duty, will you lead oflT in this work ? Or had you 
as lief that the publicans and harlots should get the start of you. If you do not 
move soon, the very slave drivers will come up from the far south and preach to you 
with penitent tears, as the reformed drunkards have to the moderate drinkers on tem- 
perance. Do you mean to wait for this ? " What shall we do," you ask with anxi- 
ety " if our minister and the majority of our covenant brethren and sisters will not 
act, in this matter, and censure us for moving in it? What can we — what shall we 
do? Alas ! is it so that these professed lights of the world will neither let their own 
light shine for the slave, nor allow you to let yours. It is a painful position that you 
are placed in. But there is no alternative; you must do your duty, whoever may 
approve or condemn. What would you do if a professed minister and church of 
Christ should treat unfashionable sins as they do the sin of slave-holding ? If there 
were a body of horse-thieves and sliop-lifters in the neighborhood, who had the 
effrontery to keep up the forms of public worship and a solemn profession of re- 
igious and moral respectability, and your minister and church fellowshipped, and 
apologised for or refused to testify against them, what would you do ? If this same 
2 



10 

clan should keep open a public brothel in their precinct, and this was connived at 
by your minister and church, or not unqualifiedly disfellowshipped and denounced, 
what would you feel obliged to do ? Would you not feel bound to rebuke and with- 
draw from such a church ? Could you esteem it the true church ? Can there be 
concord between Christ and Belial ? But say you " our minister and church can- 
not see that slaveholding is necessarily sinful? Can they see that horse-steal intr, 
sheep-stealing, fornication, adultery, gambling and sabbath-breaking are great sins, 
and yet not see that man-stealing is sinful ? Can they not see that a man is better 
than a sheep or a horse ? And do they not know that slaveholding began with 
man-stealing; that it is neither more nor less than man-stealing persisted in? Do they 
not know from the impartial testimony of Jefferson, Breckenridge and a hundred 
other slave holders of the better sort, that the system of slavery is essentially a sys- 
tem which involves murder, adultery, robbery, theft, profanity and all manner of 
wickedness ? How then can they make so much of ordinary unfashionable vices in 
detail, and not feel called on by every dictate of divine justice, truth and grace to 
denounce and utterly disfellowship this great complex iniquity of slave holding ? If 
they do nc»t see so plain a thing, labor in meekness to make them see it. If they 
proudly and self-righteously refuse to consider the matter, pity them, weep over 
them, but by all means separate from them. If Ephraim be a cake not turned, if he 
have joined himself to his] idols, leave him alone. Such a minister and such a 
church have no title to your confidence or fellowship. They are not of the family of 
Christ. "For if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Again ; 
" by their fruits shall ye know them. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs 
of thistles." Be meek and patient towards all, but fellowship not the works of dark- 
ness. Be not partakers of other men's sins. "Come out, be separate, touch not the 
unclean thing, and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty." 
The true church of Christ cannot and will not walk in fellowship with flagrant in- 
iquity. If any church do fellowship sucli iniquity, the true christian must disfel- 
lowship that. There is no other remed3\ If this is the difficulty under which any of 
you labor, 1 know of no other escape for you. Be tender hearted, sincere, frank 
and faithful to the delinquent, but firm and uncompromising in principle, and you 
will prevail over all opposition. 

But I will indulge the pleasing hope that our ministers and churches will ere long 
learn to walk as becometh godliness in this matter; that they will redeem their 
reputation, and hasten to prepare the way of the Lord, by removing every stumb- 
ling block out of his path. If they neglect or refuse to do so, the work will be 
wrought by other hands. If the Jews count themselves unworthy of the honor 
which will crown the faithful in this great enterprise, we must turn to the Gentiles, 
to the common people. Here I know we shall not be disappointed. The bone, 
muscle, common sense and humanity of the middle classes of society are fast 
preparing for this blessed mission. They will " come up to the help of the Lord 
against the mighty." And when they move, church, state, gentry and all jnust move. 
Glorious developements are at hand. I look for the day when the slaveholding 
system will be abhorred and denounced as it deserves to be by the great mass of 
the people. When anti-slavery truth will be so diffused through all classes of so- 
ciety, that it will meet the monster of oppression at every corner and turn of the 
great social thoroughfare. O for that day, when a man skall feel insulted at the 
bare offer of political power by slaveholding hands; at the suggestion of going down 
south to seek a fortune ; at the mere idea of making money out of southern prodi- 



11 

gality; at the idea of marrying- a slave holder, or a slave holder's son or daughter 
while adhering to the foul system ; at the idea of being a lawyer, a clergyman, a 
physician, a merchant, a banker, a planter, a familiar associate, consenting in any 
way to live out of, or tolerate slavery. To this complexion it must come at last. 
We must be the real friends of the slaveholder as well as of the slave, but he 
must be made to feel that we utterly loathe and abhor the thing — that we cannot 
tolerate its presence in any of the relations of life — that the sunny south with all 
its natural beauties and charms is a moral Sodom to us, so long as it remains aland 
of slavery — that no blandishnients, no suavity of manners, no protfered hospitalities, 
can induce us to regard hira in any other light than. as an oppressor and destroyer 
of humanity. VV^e have deceived him long enough. He is our brother, no worse 
by nature than we are, and not even so guilty in this same matter as many living 
under the northern lights. He has felt misgivings about the accursed system ; but 
we have consented with him. He has been countenanced and encouraged by men 
high in church and state. We have flattered him to think that we were willing to 
share the profits and honors of his peculiar institution. We have worshipped with 
him as a brother christian without reproof. We have legislated and judged by his 
side without rebuke. We have made family alliances with him without hesitation. 
In fine we have done all we could, by word and deed to make him feel that slave- 
holding was acceptable to God and ourselves. And now he is angry with those of 
us who tell him the sober truth. He is a spoiled child, and cannot bear to be cured. 
Slavery has done him almost as much injury as it has his degraded servants. He 
is in an unhappy state of mind. But if the mass of his northern brethren repent 
and do their duty, he will begin to think and feel as he ought. He has a great soul 
by nature — deep, generous good feelings — only they have been blunted, paralysed 
and pent up. He lias a great conscience too, and when it shall have been fairly 
aroused by the power of truth, he will come out for anti-slavery with a spirit of self- 
sacrifice, and with a fervor of zeal which will put to shame our own tardy, reluc- 
tant philanthropy. Already the best souls at the south respond to the truths of the 
Anti-slavery creed. A little while, if we are faithful, and we shall see slave hold- 
ers standing forth in the midst of their emancipatedblacks, testifying against the 
great abomination, shedding tears of contrition in streams, and ^followed every 
where by the joyous shouts of their grateful freedmen and women. O the luxury 
of a slave holder's repentance — the zest of that moral enthusiasm which he must 
feel in breaking the yoke, and seeing his negroes standup'repossessed of their natu- 
ral rights ! How many happy servants will cluster around their converted masters, 
and vow to live, and die with them ! How many masters will rejoice to act as fathers 
and counsellors to their confiding dependents ! Slavery will be abolished — not 
many years jhence ! The people will be happy ! The cancer that is eating out 
the vitals of this republic will be removed. God will put away in mercy the guilt 
of five hard-hearted generations. The now angry masters of the south, and the most 
radical abolitionists of the north, will bo the best of friends. This nation will re- 
new a glorious career of moral enterprise, and be renowned for works of peace 
and love to the remotest bounds of the habitable earth. The negro race, elevated, 
purified, enlightened and brought into the practical virtues of Christianity, will be 
a chosen people to fulfil the great law of kindness. I see all this beaming in the 
verge of hope's horizon. 

"O, that will be joyful, joyful, joyful, 
When slavery is no more !" 

When the warm hearted Southron shall invite us to come down and prosecute 



12 

the ^Tork' of reform among the emancipate colored people. When they who once 
talked only of tar and feathers, or the hempen cord for our necks, shall meet us 
■with a hearty, salutation — " God bless you, friends ; we once hated you, but noAv we 
love you. You told us the truth, and we were enraged. We thought you our worst 
foes, but now we esteem you our truest friends ; come, live and die with us I" 
Fathers, mothers, brethren, sisters, young men, maidens and little children of this 
interesting throng — Who of you will not labor for such a consummation as this ? 
What heart here does not leap for joy at such a prospect .' What bosom does not 
throb with new animation in this righteous cause .' Is there one present who could 
bear to remember that be was cold and indifferent about the overthrow of this dread- 
ful iniquity ? While too many are celebrating the national independence by empty 
noise, vain hilarity, and self complacent glo,rification, it has been our favored lot 
to honor it by contemplating the rights of the enslaved and the duties of a people, 
that for more than sixty years have been inflicting the most grievous wrongs on 
those whom they acknowledged equals with themselves in the great natural rights 
of man. It has been good to be here. Truths have been uttered, moral principles 
taught, hopes awakened, and generous sympathies strengthened, which can but 
ennoble and adorn all who cherish them. Let us go away resolved to double our 
diligence in the prosecution of this humane enterprise — to walk worthy of our anti- 
slavery calling — to be faithful unto death. Some of us will be called hence from 
our labors without beholding in the flesh the heart-stirring scenes of that glorious 
jubilee for which we are laboring. I hope to witness them before I leave this taber- 
nacle. Yet if I do not, if many of you do not, it shall be well; God's will be done. 
But you, ruddy young men, blooming maidens, sprightly children, most of you, will 
probably see such a day of rejoicing and of public gladness, as we have never ex- 
perienced. Liberty will be proclaimed "throughout all the land to all the inhabitants 
thereof." The bells of all our churches will then for once be rung in earne.st sin- 
cerity. Our poets and orators will for once find honest scope for their sweetest, 
raost eloquent strains. The fourth of July will then for the first time be celebrated 
" without partiality and without hypocrisy." The American people will then have 
become truly free, independent and honorable among the nations. The heavens 
will be bowed in benediction to the earth, and the dawn of universal peace streak 
the eastern sky. Man w411 begin to feel the ties of his original brotherhood, and 
to know that his own and his brother's good are one and indivisible. O, let us 
" liope on and hope ever," labor on and labor ever, in the vineyard of reform, till 
all be realized which was comprehended in the angelic song, " Glory to God in the 
highest, on earth peace, good will to men, ' 



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